Akula

I like this bit of ash I thought I'd found a supplier for some Ovangkol, but it turns out they dont have any, and wont for some time. I'm still on the hunt for some, but I'm starting to look for alternative "warm"-sounding woods. I'm thinking Walnut...

Fair do's... I gotta say, the more I look at that finish, the more I want to finish a guitar in Hammerite paint

Looks pretty cool, I love the finish. I probably would've gone with pickup mounting rings, though. Why the locking nut with a strat-style trem? Pre-used neck, or are you planning to upgrade to a different trem sometime?

If you're planning on re-fretting, it might be easier to buy a new fretboard. But if you're set on fixing this one, you can open the cracks a little, get some glue in there, then clamp it tight closed and leave it to dry. Only problem is that hammering in frets might cause the cracks to open up again.

Also, where are you, geographically speaking? It'd make no sense mailing a fretboard over the Atlantic ocean for something like that - but if someone lives half an hour's drive away, they might be tempted. I agree with supplebanana though - it'd be much better for you to try it yourself. Dont worry about breaking it! If you're worried about the price of replacing a broken fretboard, you'd probably still have to pay for someone else to do the job for you. Only thing you'll gain from having a go is experience, which is worth a lot more than money is

I never have the money to order all the parts in one go! Pay day is friday, so a new batch of parts arrives at my house usually on mondays or tuesdays I think its looking great, though. Are you gonna put a roundover on those edges? I know the RG-esque shape begs crisp lines, but I'd be afraid of dropping it and lopping my foot off...

£9 each, including knobs, not bad! Cheers for the heads up

Hey, I'm having trouble finding concentric (stacked) pots for sale... Or at least, for sale at less than about £20 apiece. I'm going for a 3-band EQ, two volumes, and a gain control for my bass project, so three concentric pots would do the job nicely - but I dont really want to drop that much money on some freaking pots. Cheers!

Tommorow I'll rough-cut the body shape, then when my router table arrives in a couple of days, I'm good to go...

Thats pretty awesome. I'd love to try something like that. How much did the aluminium cost, overall? Did you know it was going to turn out that heavy? Was there anything practical you could do about it?

Very nice. I'd love to get up on stage with something like that, certainly memorable. But I agree with SR, scratches are gonna suck... Dust, as well.

1. Not that I've noticed. 2. You can, yes, but theres only so much this'll help with sustaining the high E and B strings. Really you need an efficient driver, and a good circuit to provide enough power to vibrate these strings, but naturally you'd want to back off the lower strings pole heights so they dont become overwhelming. 3. To my understanding, these neo-magnets are too strong, and they pull the magnetic field around too tightly, so theres isnt enough range to reach the strings. 4. Nope, never tried it. Could be an interesting idea, not sure how it'd help though... These are all my personal thoughts and experiences. No doubt I'm wrong on a few of these, but I thought I'd offer my help anyways

I think the ash one's awesome. Find a beautiful peice of ash to use, and that'd be brilliant.

A simple solution for that would be to prepare for the worst case scenario - a 3-humbucker superstrat setup. But of course then you have to deal with the aesthetics of having three humbuckers on an LP, or a strat, or a tele... etc. Couple your switcheable body idea with a quick-change pickup system, ala EMG quick-connectors but with clips instead of pickup mounting screws? I can see this getting complicated before its finished...

http://www.rapidonline.com/Cables-Connecto...mm-pitch/178119 Thats the sort of connector I'm on about. So all the pickups and the bridge ground wire go STRAIGHT to that, no electronics in the "body" itself. Then, in the shell body, you take the wires off the female connector, and wire up the guitar as you would normally. As long as you remember what wires are what pins, you could have an explorer body that has a 3-way and coil split switches, but then plop it in a strat body and you got the 3 knobs and a 5-way switch. See what I mean? No "smart" electronics involved anywhere, just moving the wiring from one place to another using those connectors. I just thought it'd look a bit smarter than a 1/4" patch cable. Just my opinion though, tell me to shut up now

Could use a PCI-type connector on the back of the "body", connects to the electronics in the shell body. That way you could have one "body" unit with three pickups, totally universal, and the choice over what switches or pots you have is just as free as what body shape you want.

Sounds like the pot's dirty. You can get cleaning products for them, but if it was a cheap pot, its probably better to just replace it As for the buzz, it goes away if you take your hands off the strings? Maybe your output jack's wired up back to front...

Oky, cheers for your help. I'll go buy those inserts from ebay, they're like £4.50, I can take a risk like that. Just waiting for a pair of sash clamps to arrive (tired of using my school's workshop all the time), and I'll glue up and get started.

I think I'm gonna have to take your advice, and go for threaded inserts. I'm equally curious as to whether the added bolt-on pressure changes anything, as well. Would inserts such as these do the trick? http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/M6-X-20mm-Hex-Drive-...=item414e3e1e04 This guitar will have a Floyd Rose tremolo bridge, I have decided. The ones from guitarfetish.com caught my eye, but I'm not sure if they're any good? Also not sure what the shipping to UK will cost.

Oblaty, I'm building a neck as a practice run for my bass project. I just wanted to use this neck for this project because otherwise I'll have a spare neck lying around. Workingman, would there be much of an advantage of that, over the simplicity of just glueing it in? My other reason was just curiosity, I've never owned a set neck guitar.

One on the right. I dont know why, it just caught my eye first.

To be honest, it was there, and it was fairly cheap. All of it was, in fact. I have a lot of planning to do before I make any cuts, and I intend to finish other projects first, so I'll have time to look for other wood for the wings. I originally thought sapele would be a good idea... Ovangkol would be my first choice, since its what Warwick uses for their Infinity's, but I cant seem to find it anywhere. Perhaps I'm not looking hard enough... Here's my bolt-on idea. Before I glue the top and bottom together, I'll rout a neck pocket into both peices, leaving a square cavity in the body for the neck to insert into: It'll have to be very tight, but I think it'll work. The screws will then come through from the back and secure the neck downwards onto the back of the guitar - there'll be no tight join between the neck and the top. Only problem is that the pickup rout will cut the tenon more or less in half. So I'll move the pickup about 20mm back towards the bridge, allowing a tenon thats about 70mm long on the treble side and 80mm on the bass side, and 68mm wide. Should be enough for a stable neck join. Any feedback on this plan? I know its ambitious, but I think it can work.

Been planning this build for a few years now, I think its time I got on with it. Specs: * Ash top (12mm thick) * Iroko wings (25mm thick) * Maple center (25mm thick) * Maple neck * Bolt-on tenon neck join * Wenge fretboard * Hollow body, thinned to 6mm thick top back and sides * F-holes * 34" scale length * 24 frets * 5 strings * Warwick bridge and tailpiece * Black hardware * 2x Jazz humbucker pickups * Active preamp with 3-band EQ * 2x volume pots, and 1x boost gain pot * Oil finish Big thanks to Prostheta, for letting me use his Infinity plan drawings as a base for my own. I'll be building the neck for this one, which'll be a first for me. For that reason, I bought enough maple for two guitar necks as well as this bass neck, so I'll get some practice runs done first. Also, I decided to make it bolt-on neck join. This is mostly because I'll feel a lot better knowing I can build another neck for it in a year or two. I think I've figured out how to hide the neck join well enough, its not gonna be the average slab-heel bolt on join. The ash top: Maple neck blanks and Iroko wings: I gotta be careful with this Iroko. Apparently it's nasty stuff to touch, breath, etc...

Well, I had a neck, bridge, some pickups lying around, and I saw this big bit of Ash for a pretty reasonable price... So why not? Specs: * Ash body (48mm thick, 2-piece) * Maple neck * Rosewood fretboard * Set neck join * 25.5" scale length * 22 frets * Hardtail bridge * Chrome hardware * 2x Humbucker pickups * 1x Volume pot * 1x tone pot * 1x 3-way toggle switch * Black stained and sanded back * Oil finish * Clear pickuard (rear routed) Thats the basic outline, anyways. The neck's a strat replacement style from the bay, this'll be the third guitar it's been on. The bolt-on threads have all gone, the neck's in a bit of a state, so I've decided to glue it into this guitar - a final destination for a pretty well-used neck. Just gotta get myself up to B&Q and get some 18mm MDF for the template (its on 6mm MDF right now, too thin to rout the body with my 1" router bits), then I can get started proper. My only concern right now is weight, and the thickness of the body blank. A carve would bring down the percieved thickness a lot, but I've never done a carve before, not sure if the RG would look right with a carve either. Any thoughts on this? Worthless without pics, so here's my slab of Ash:

+1 For a fairly standard scale length, truss rods are cheap, pretty easy to install if you have a straight edge to guide your router. Much rather have one and never adjust it than get your guitar strung up and realise you have a half inch action at 24th fret...